ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Bob Motz is no newcomer to admiring the grandeur of bald eagles, our national symbol of strength and freedom. While ice skating as a boy with his father on a frozen canal, he began observing the majestic birds, which winter by the hundreds, sometimes thousands, in the Quad Cities area.

Now 77, the retired biology teacher turns the wooded banks along the Mississippi River into his living classroom, offering nature enthusiasts a closer look at the white-crowned creatures. Armed with spotting scopes, Motz invites groups of people to pile into his Chevy Malibu for eagle tours he calls "safaris."

At $20 a carload per hour (there's a two-hour minimum), Motz isn't really enhancing his retirement income playing tour guide. He's simply sharing his passion.

"My main goal is to get people excited about eagles," he said.

Each January through early March, all along the upper reaches of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, people like Motz take newcomers and repeat visitors to prime locations for spotting eagles, which migrate south from their summer homes in search of fish, the main staple of their diet.

"Eagles, like all birds, migrate for food availability," said Eileen Hanson, public relations director of the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn. "They can tolerate cold temperatures, but they've got to have a steady food supply. So open water, in the wintertime, is the place you're going to find them."

Across much of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, a predictable layer of ice keeps the giant birds of prey blocked from getting food. So in places farther south, such as along the Wisconsin River in the Sauk City area, eagles by the hundreds perch in trees overlooking the river, waiting for prey to swim past.

"These are not ordinary, year-round eagles," said John Keefe, of the Ferry Bluff Eagle Council. "These are migrants or tourists, however you want to put it, who come here because ( the habitat is) conducive to surviving in the wintertime."

Each Saturday morning through the end of February, Keefe and his colleagues will be taking tourists on bus trips to prime viewing locations in the Sauk City area.

About 100 eagles, the largest concentration in Wisconsin, are wintering this year in the area about three hours northwest of Chicago. The organized tours allow folks to get close enough to see the birds perch on tree limbs overlooking the water.

"Sometimes it's referred to as loafing," Keefe said. "In reality, it's a survival technique that allows them to conserve energy by not flying around looking for food. It allows them to sit right by the river and let the food come to them."

The bus serves two purposes: keeping eagle-watchers warm and preventing them from spooking the birds. In eagle etiquette, that's a no-no.

"One of the things that disturbs them is people getting out of their cars and walking up to the bottom of the trees. The eagles fly off and, lo and behold, that close-up (photo) you had hoped to get doesn't occur," he said.

In the Quad Cities, about a three-hour drive mostly west from Chicago, Motz also tends to keep his guests inside the vehicle. The scopes bring people surprisingly close to the eagles.

"I have spotting scopes that magnify from 15 to 45 times," he said. "We get close enough that we can see the yellow around the black center of the eagles' eyes. We can see the nostrils and the beaks."

Motz promises his customers they will see eagles. He has been giving tours for about 15 years and knows where to find them.

"I offer a money-back guarantee if we don't. That's never, ever happened," he said proudly.

Upstream in Wabasha, eagle viewing is available at the National Eagle Center. Wabasha sits along a narrow channel that doesn't freeze over.

"Our building is actually right on the Mississippi River … with a wall of glass overlooking the river, so you can see them from the comfort of the indoors," Hanson said.

The center also leads occasional field trips. Education director Scott Mehus begins the four-hour experience with a brief classroom program before taking visitors, by coach, to several spots where eagles gather.

The fact that eagles gather at all is thanks to the 1972 ban on DDT, an insecticide that caused females to lay fragile eggs that would break.

"We were down to having only one active bald eagle nest. Today there are over 300," Hanson said. Their numbers have grown so much that eagles were removed from the endangered species list in 2007.

"It's one of the greatest comeback stories among endangered species," Motz said.

If you go

Bob Motz can be reached at 309-788-8389 or email by eaglemotz@aol.com.